Fellow PE professionals - what are you looking for out of life and how does your career fit in to that?
When I think about career uncertainty for MBA / VP choices, I think it really boils down to an uncertainty around my philosophy of life. How much do I value success, wealth, family, free time, and in general, what life am I looking to lead?
I posted one of my first WSO posts recently in this forum: "Investing Jobs With The Best Comp To Lifestyle Ratio" which has been the general philosophy of life I am working towards, although with a great deal of uncertainty. I am finding it much more healthy to solve for career choices that fit the life I want to lead, and not solve for the life I want to lead based on career choices.
But I am interested to hear how others on this forum think about this question. Clearly, everyone here is professionally minded, smart, and driven. Otherwise, you probably would not be wasting your time at a career-oriented online watering hole. What are you looking for in life, and how do you fit your career into your overall life philosophy? How did you develop this philosophy of life?
Thank you and wishing good health to all.
Build up a reasonable (but by no means lavish) nest egg very quickly - do-able in a low single digit handful of years as a post-MBA VP at a fund. And then transition to a better W/L balance job. Lifestyle is not sustainable (assuming you want some semblance of a healthy relationship with partner, kids, parents, friends, etc.). Enough to never really need to "worry" about money living a upper middle-class lifestyle (i.e., drive a reasonable car, live in a nice but not opulent house, time / $ for nice but not glamorous vacations, and oodles and oodles of time to spend with kids).
Maybe this is the young naïveté in me speaking but I want to keep grinding and see how far I can get career-wise and eventually launch my own fund. I really like private investing and would love to be the guy at the top of a middle market fund some day.
Looks like from your post history you just recently started your career. This viewpoint will change VERY quickly unless you’re a borderline psycho who cares only about career success to the detriment of every other aspect of life - great for the people that are like that as they’ll make a ton of $$&, but it’s really not for the vast majority out there
Absolutely, hence why I started my comment with the caveat that my goals are probably influenced by my youth / inexperience.
For me, it is all about balance between comp, interesting work, and having time for personal pursuits. Not interested in the large cap grind long-term but some LMM/MM funds can provide this lifestyle.
IMO it all evens out. The guy that spent his 20s partying/travelling might kick himself in his 30s but probably has a wealth of different life experiences. Meanwhile the dude that spent 10 years grinding to the top of a MF will probably have the much nicer apt/food/cars/etc., along with all the sweat and stress that was required.
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